Color Me Crazy
by hiswendy
Summary: She can come up with a million reasons why she should take off the ring. But as she flips through the short novel and reads his words, she comes up with just one that matters.


If you can, set the format to sans-serif, 3/4? It just looks better.  
Set in 7.21 between Logan's proposal and Rory's graduation.

Oh, standard disowner claims apply.

Title: **Color Me Crazy**  
Category: TV Shows » Gilmore Girls  
Author: hiswendy  
Language: English, Rating: Rated: T  
Genre: Romance/Angst  
Published: 01-27-11  
Chapters: 1, Words: 1,828

"But as she flips through the short novel and reads his words, she comes up with _just one_ that matters."

* * *

Rory Gilmore puts down the cereal atop one of the boxes.

She picks up the royal blue ring case. She opens it and the three-karat, oval-cut diamond ring smiles up at her when it catches the light of the empty apartment.

Rory Gilmore slides it into her finger and it shines and smiles and Rory smiles back. She mentally thanks the world for giving him a boyfriend with good taste. "Rory Gilmore-Huntzberger," she murmurs under her breath. The name makes her chest bubble and acrobats to perform in her stomach so she repeats it again and again, "Rory Gilmore Huntzberger, Rory Gilmore-Huntzberger..."

And it fits. The name fits just as magnificently as the ring fits her hand. Against her pale skin, it radiates and glows and Rory lets the ring blind her and pierce into her eyes and the shimmers play in her _mind's_ eyes and there she watches herself in a wedding gown walking down the aisle and while everyone in the congregation looks at her all she really sees is the man at the end of the carpeted aisle and her heart bursts.

Rory squeezes her eyes, flutters them open, and clasps the ring to her chest.

The gray walls with dots of clay plasters greet her. She's not in a gown, she's not walking down an aisle, Logan's not standing at the end of it, and there's no congregation, only boxes.

Boxes. The last time she sat in an empty apartment, surrounded by boxes... she had her head craned in her hands, and her heart scattered on the floor, and she cried, cried, cried.

That last time, her heart broke all over again. Before that night, she thought she had managed to pieced herself together and cage herself away from anywhere _he_ might be able reach it. But that last time, _he_'d come back and destroyed her all over again. That last time, _he_ came to ask her to come away with him. And though she would never admit it to anyone—not even to her mother—_her_ heart broke with each "NO" she yelled at him.

_Come with me._

He stood there with his piercing, chocolate eyes and messy chestnut hair and she saw dig into himself just so he can show something of himself to her, to bear himself to her, and she felt resentful that he only wants to bear himself to her then and not before. But he stood there then, looking the way he did: desperate and hurt and trying so hard to claw out of a grave hole and she wanted to help him up like before. And she saw a little bit of what they used to be and can't help but, for a moment indulge in his crazy proposal, and ask: _"Where?" _

But he didn't know where to go and he wanted to just be with her and that's so painfully desirable that Rory has to pull back or he will pull her in just the way he always did. Just as quickly as her shield dropped, Rory picked it up and turned her back to him.

And then it came: his voice rings in her ears and he sounded so genuine and so bold and so naked and it hurt to hear him say the things she wanted to hear months ago.

_You can do whatever you want!_

The thought pervaded her mind: how ready she had been to give him all of her but he just abandoned her and didn't say goodbye and called but didn't talk.

_It's not what I want._

_It is! I know you!_

_You don't know me!_

She felt her cheeks burn and she felt tears sting her eyes. And it stung that he had to break her before he could piece himself together. And it hurt that his voice still melted her. And it hurt that he left—why did he leave? And she knew that Jess had his reasons and she knew that Jess never wanted to hurt her. But she would have done everything to help him with whatever problem he had, so why didn't he give her a chance to do that? Why didn't he trust her enough to know that she will love him no matter what? Why wasn't her patience, love, encouragement, and support enough?

_We'll live together, we'll be together._

Rory knew it was unfair of her to think that way. Jess lost control and everything went overwhelmingly wrong. Jess cared for her. And when Jess said the words, Rory believed him; Jess loved her. Rory knew how big and fiery and passionate and bold they were together. But Rory also knew that Jess coloured her heart crazy.

_It's what I want. It's what you want, too!_

The first _No._

_I want to be with you. ...We have to start anew!_

_There's nothing to start!_

Like a rebellious child, Jess stroked the bloody red crayon past the shape of her heart and colored outside the lines and pressed the crayon too hard to the point that it felt like a stab and he made her feel every corner and every inch of herself—some of which she'd never known existed.

But amidst his haphazard masterpiece, he dropped the crayon and left.

_Your stuff is all in boxes. It's perfect; you're ready. And _I'm_ ready. I'm ready for this. You can count of me now. I know you couldn't count on me before, but you can now! You can._

Jess had coloured her heart, then left. Without a goodbye. Just a breath on the other side of the telephone, a shadow on the other side of the country. He made her feel the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, and then left her alone to align her world back to the world of normalcy and regularity and the misery of knowing there could be more but not being able to ever touch it again because she couldn't reach the highest highs and the lowest lows without his intoxicating kiss and biting words to guide her.

A weaker _No._

Rory knew that if she lay her heart on the floor again for him to color and write margin notes on and to destroy and to rebuild, she might not survive.

_You know we're supposed to be together. I knew it the first time I saw you two years ago._

Her heart felt heavy because it was all too much. Too much sincerity, too much truth.

_And you know it, too._

Her heart cracked at the weight.

_I know you do._

She'd closed her eyes, hoping her heart would shut down, too.

Defiantly now: _No. No. No._

She had to be strong and defiant and convince herself she meant it.

_Only say no if you _really_ don't want to be with me._

Strong. Color. Shield. Heart. _No._

That last time boxes surrounded her, she cried because she had to protect her heart. To protect her heart and her life and all the carefully planned things that come along with them—her mother, her school, her family, her friends, her town, her career.

Rory feels the throb of her pulse and the river that flows down her face. Between that time when the boxes surrounded her and her last meeting with him, Rory doesn't know where she stands with him. She feels like she never really knew. But now she's even more at a loss.

The ring weighs her hand down and she _has_ to take it off. She fumbles to slide the ring off but instead elbows the box beside her. The box of books spill to the cold, hard, gray floor. Rory shifts her eyes to the spilled books and her heart sinks. The Subsect, small and thin, is buried under Tolstoys and Prousts.

Rory kneels to shove her beloved books to save the small, black book of Jess Mariano.

She folds her legs under her on the floor, she trails her hand on the black, worn varnished cover, and her breath hitches in her throat.

Rory Gilmore has surrendered her dream of an all-consuming love that night she defiantly screamed no. But even so, her love for Logan should be enough. It should be enough to conquer her fears and to fire her soul and to give up her other dreams. They have been together too long already; she should be ready for this jump.

But as she flips through the small book and skims over the words, _his_ words, the acrobatics stop and the bubbling turns to a storm that rages within her. Rory sits with her back against the box and she reads. She imagines Jess sitting beside her, reading. She imagines his soft breathing. She imagines his heart beat fast like it used to whenever she laid on his chest when they read a book together.

Rory Gilmore can come up with a million reasons why she should take off Logan's ring now and all of her reasons will make sense.

But as she flips through the short novel and reads his words, she comes up with _just one_ that matters.

Jess and Rory missed too many kisses and too many chances already. She knows that Logan can spend the rest of his lifetime trying to make up the kisses she will miss with Jess. But she knows Logan will not compare.

Rory slides the ring out of her finger.

Jess Mariano can be just a breath on the other end of the phone, a shadow on the other side of the country, an author behind a book, a pair of passionate chocolate brown eyes and, still, he colors every part of her with just his breath, just his shadow, just his words, just his glance in an all-consuming way that no one else can.

* * *

*Having obsessed unhealthily over this shipping for the past year, I decided to just get everything out by writing. My work is far inferior to many I've read here, but as this is an unedited, raw, get-it-out-of-my-chest piece, I hope it suffices.

I wanted to do an analysis on so many moments of theirs, but I don't have the commitment to write a collection or anything major.

To be honest, I feel iffy towards my own rationalization of the infamous LWTTWF scene since I know that Rory had more practical reasons for what happened whereas I only gave half of what I think was the reason. And in this piece, I didn't even pay mind to important events that happen between that scene and their very last moment together in the series... but I hope the jump makes sense with what I'm essentially trying to get across. Okay, enough self-deprecation. Rory says it's unappealing.


End file.
